You mean, people who don’t hate him? That’s enough for a pol. For most of us too, probably.
The last time a republican won a presidential election with a clear electoral vote majority was 1988. Democrats won with large majorities in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012. Republicans haven’t won a presidential election with a clear majority in 20+ years.
Bush won in 2000 and 2004 by thin margins in single states that had major improprieties (voter suppression, etc). So there is a valid assumption that democrats are at an advantage with presidential elections, especially if cultural and demographic changes continue to work in favor of the democratic party.
Yeah, I forgot drug dealing. It was the 90s, I’ve forgotten most of it.
As far as Elizabeth Warren, she has 8% of the democratic support already in a primary (Biden has 10%, Hillary has about 70%).
Considering that a first term senator from MA who almost nobody who isn’t a political wonk knows about already has about as much support as the current VP means she already has a strong base of appeal. If Warren really wanted to run (and she doesn’t) I think she could easily get the netroots and labor unions behind her which would make her a very formidable opponent to Clinton.
This is what the electoral map would’ve looked like based on polls of Obama vs McCain in October 2006.
But throw in a couple years of name recognition and Obama won easily.
This strikes me as a hopelessly optimistic take on this poll. Another way to look at it is this: practically nobody thinks Joe Biden is going to be president, and he’s polling a little better than Warren. The people who are predisposed to like Warren already know about her - and I’m not saying I don’t like her - because she’s a darling in liberal circles and her famous quotes are shared on Facebook pretty often, and she has about one-ninth the support that Hillary does.
Looking back at how the Bush administration turned out, I’d say the prevailing mood here has every reason to feel we nailed it in 2000 and 2004. It’s the people who thought Bush should be President who should be explaining themselves.
Of course not. My decree forbidding it went into effect in 1972.
Umm . . . officially.
Hopelessly optimistic is my middle name. Either way, I do think there is a massive undercurrent within both the democratic party but also among disillusioned voters and marginal voters who would respond to a true progressive who is honest about the state of the plutocracy. So Warren would do well. All Clinton really has is name recognition and she would not be able to tap into that. Obama pretended he was a progressive to win that support, but it has mostly evaporated.
I think at best Warren could play the role that John Edwards played in the 2008 cycle: forcing the leading candidate(s) to take concrete stands on issues (like universal health care and climate change in 2008, issues relating to economic inequality in 2016) that the leader(s) would have liked to stay vague on. (For instance, before Edwards got the ball rolling on UHC in 2007, the most Hillary would say was that she’d like to take that up sometime before the end of her second term.)
I personally think we’re at a point in our politics where being reasonably concrete about what you’re for and against helps the Dems and hurts the GOP: the more the Dems highlight the real differences between the parties, the worse the GOP looks. Outside of their electoral strongholds in the South and interior West, the GOP depends on blurring the differences, appearing much more moderate than they are in general elections.
Meanwhile, in the Dem primaries, Hillary would surely like to be vague, to be all things to all (Dem) people, and win the nomination virtually by acclamation. But I think it hurts the Dems to be vague and blurry about what they’re for.
So I’d like to see Warren run, not because she can win, but to keep Hillary honest.
I’m curious to see if the GOP continues their streak of nominating seemingly normal people you can find in your everyday life. Distasteful policies, sure, but Romney is any used car salesman. You can find Palins on the PTA or the church potluck. Bush was a frat boy. McCain is grandpa, always talking about the war and how better things were back in the day. It seemed like Christie would continue this tradition since there’s a hundred fat loudmouths like him at every sporting event, but now he probably won’t be it.
Meanwhile, well…I’m not saying Hillary, Obama, Kerry, and Gore are lizard people from beyond the stars who are uncomfortable aping human behavior and haven’t quite debugged their language translators. I’m just saying if it turns out some politicians need to drink baby blood to maintain the elasticity of their artificial skin they’d be at the top of my list.
I guess my thesis is the GOP should change their policies since they’re going to lose to what could actually be a bunch of squirrels in a human costume.
Most used car salespersons have a much keener grasp of the resources of the average American.
No, Romney was a rich guy who thought he could pretend to be doing the rest of us a favor by kindly volunteering to be President of the United States. It’s amusing that he’s still smarting from his rejection by the voters, which he seems to be unable to grasp.
The answer’s simple, Mitt: most of us noticed that your real aim was to turn America into even more of a plutocracy than it already is.
Because the current President has done such an excellent job of closing the wealth gap.
Only one President has succeeded in making us all richer: Bill Clinton. So that’s a definite plus on Hillary’s resume, since she was part of the administration, if only informally.
Of course, that means a rejection of Obamanomics and a return of Rubinomics. I’ll take that.
Wrong. Obama and Clinton agree on pretty much all economic matters – they both want to raise the minimum wage, they both want Clinton-era tax levels on the rich, they both support universal health care, etc. Additionally, they both support increased infrastructure spending (and other domestic spending programs) to stimulate the economy during a downturn.
“Obamanomics” is pretty much the same as “Clintonomics”.
Does Obama also support welfare reform, free trade, balanced budgets, and deregulation?
I’m a yellow dog Democrat and I don’t think Mrs. Clinton has a chance.
Why?
[ol]
[li]Health issues - When is the last time that the American have knowingly elected a candidate with known health issues? FDR in 1944. Clinton’r recent brain scare is just enough to make her candidacy if weren’t for her:[/li][li]Questionable sexual orientation - Recent celebrity “coming outs aside”, the US isn’t progressive enough to elect a bisexual POTUS. Especially one who has pretended not to be for decades in the public spotlight. Even if this was ignored somehow, there’s the:[/li][li]Boat anchor attached to her named William Jefferson Clinton - He sank Al Gore against an obvious incompetent like George W. To think that his myriad foibles wouldn’t do the same to his own wife is to misread the tea leaves of American politics. But let’s say even that doesn’t hurt her, she’s:[/li][li]Still a polarizing figure - You either like Clinton or you don’t. She really doesn’t give you too much room for any neutral positioning on her. She’s an unpleasant person, she’s a grasping opportunist who makes no secret of her being as such. And she really seems to believe the press about her own intelligence. Frankly, unless you knew the “real her” the public “her” is so off-putting that it makes voting for her a questionable act.[/li][/ol]
While the GOP has NO “world beaters” on deck for the 2016 POTUS election, even they can pull a win out if they have to face Clinton as the Democratic nominee. She just has too much baggage to have a serious chance.
[quote=“nevadaexile, post:94, topic:681404”]
[li]Health issues …Clinton’r recent brain scare[/li][/quote]
WTF? Biden has had aneurysms, but Clinton has no known major health issues.
[quote]
[li]Questionable sexual orientation[/li][/quote]
Where the hell do you get that from?
[quote]
[li]Boat anchor attached to her named William Jefferson Clinton[/li][/quote]
The most popular recent president, all that peace and prosperity … how’s that a problem?
Oh. You mean the blowjob stuff. How’d that work against him back then? :dubious: And how would it be a negative today?
[quote]
[li]Still a polarizing figure[/li][/quote]
And the polarizers keep doing their best to keep it that way, don’t they?
You’re right that not everyone is going to support her. So? Nobody has ever been elected to high office unanimously.
Okay, are you talking about her or yourself?
Funny how the polls, such as they are, don’t reflect that. How’s it gonna change?
Did you happen to miss that? Or the months prior to this when it was clear that Mrs. Clinton was looking very tired and ill?
I didn’t mention Biden; you did.
How much more of this is there out there?After 15 years, this should be a distant memory.
And I haven’t scratched upon the fact that they went from nearly bankrupt to more than $150 million in personal assets in the time that he has been out of office. What happens when someone starts looking into who the donors were?
Here are groups and publications which SUPPORT Clinton and mention her ability to polarize:
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1229053,00.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/27/us-usa-clinton-benghazi-idUSBREA0Q1O920140127
So clearly, I’m not alone in believing that there is no “middle ground” when it comes to her.
If you like her, then bully for you.
Unfortunately, one vote doesn’t win elections.
PS: I DID say that I’m a Democrat.
Did you “miss” that?
I think that’s an outdated view of Clinton. Her tenure as Secretary of State made her a much more acceptable figure to those who previously disliked her, and Obama has frankly made a lot of us right-wingers long for the Clinton days.
I don’t think Clinton’s blood clot problem (from a year ago) is too fresh in people’s minds, and it probably won’t be a big deal unless it happens again. But, uh, “questionable sexual orientation?” That’s some crazy shit.
That’s true - but it also comes with the caveat that Secretary of State isn’t an elected office. It’s a different kind of job and the SoS doesn’t have to get involved in partisan disputes the way the president and elected officials do. That’s helped her in the polls, but if she runs for president she can’t be above the fray anymore.
Yes, I did. I thought you were referring to the National Enquirer story about a brain tumor.
As a way of giving you an excuse, as you may have confused the two.
As much as Fox and Friends can invent.
Yes. Now why isn’t it?
Same thing that happens when any other former president gets his finances looked into.
You’re not addressing the *why *of her image being polarized. Or of why the polls don’t show it crippling her presidential prospects, in fact the opposite.
You also fail to support or even address the sexual-orientation slur you made just a couple posts above. Would you please tell us where that comes from? :dubious: And, having done that, discuss how much traction it has politically?
Your *concern *is palpable.
Donors? Those aren’t donations, they’re income. I seem to recall that Hillary ran for president in 2008 and the Clintons made their tax returns public, so if you want to know how they made their money, you can read them. Most of it came from his speaking fees and their book deals. The Clinton Foundation was seen as a potential complication at that time, but it didn’t become a huge issue and Bill continued to run the foundation throughout Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state.